She hog-tied juvenile inmates. Now former SC officer heads to prison herself.

A former S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice officer who used excessive force against juvenile inmates will spend a year in federal prison for civil rights violations.

Nicole Jenice Samples, 36, of Columbia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis to a year in prison, according to a release Thursday from the U.S. attorney’s office. She pleaded guilty to the charge in September.

Samples, as a lieutenant at the Department of Juvenile Justice, used excessive force as punishment for two juvenile inmates at the department’s headquarters on Broad River Road in Columbia on Jan. 1, 2017.

She directed two subordinates to apply mechanical restraints to the two juveniles because they were making noise, according to the release. Samples instructed the officers to connect the hand restraints to the leg restraints, a practice known as “hog-tying.”

The juvenile inmates were left in that position for more than two hours as punishment, and a surveillance camera captured one of the kids being hog-tied and left alone for hours, prosecutors said. DJJ policy prohibits the practice of hog-tying.

After the event, Samples directed her subordinates to falsify reports related to the use of force incident, prosecutors said.

“Being entrusted with a position of power comes with both honor and responsibility,” U.S. Attorney Sherri Lydon said. “That responsibility must not be abused.”

This story was originally published August 2, 2018 at 9:41 AM.